Slovene – Slovenščina

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

The Slovenian language is one of the South Slavic languages and spoken by 2.5 million people worldwide. It is the official language of Slovenia and is also one of the 23 official languages of the European Union since 2004. Until the 16th century, there were many dialects within the Slovene language.  However, those dialects have since been unified into one language. Then, in the 19th century, the unified language was officially...

Slovak – Slovenský

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Slovak or Slovakian is one of the official languages of the European Union since 2004. It belongs to the West Slavic group of languages, which includes Czech, Polish, Silesian, Slovincian and Sorbian. Due to geographical reasons,　these neighbouring countries have influenced each other and　shared a great part of their history. Slovak is spoken mainly in the Slovak Republic by about 7 million people. In 1993, when Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the Slovak language became the official language of Slovakia. Slovak dialects can be divided into four main groups: Eastern Slovak, Central Slovak, Western Slovak and Lowland. The standard language is the Central dialect because it is taught in schools and commonly used for official...

Sinhala

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Sinhala is an Indo-European language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch, though it has been influenced by members of the Dravidian language group. Sinhala is one of two local languages on the island country of Sri Lanka and spoken by 16 million people. Because Sri Lanka is a small island and Sinhala is not used elsewhere, it has some unique features that are not found in any other Indo-Aryan language.Sinhala has its own script and writing style which is considered a derivation of the Indian Brahmi language. Like other Indian languages, its origin can be traced back more than 2000...

Serbian – српски/srpski

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

The Serbian language is part of the Slavic language family with 10 million speakers. Serbian dialects can be divided into two main groups: Shtoktavian and Torlakia. The standard language in Serbia is based on the Shtoktavian dialect. Serbian is strongly influenced by Turkish. In fact, within the language, there are around 8000 words of Turkish origin. One feature of the Serbian language is that it is the only European language that uses both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. Since 2006, the Cyrillic alphabet is the official script in...

Sindhi – سنڌي

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

There are an estimated 21 million people in the world who speak Sindhi. It is primarily spoken in Pakistan and India where it is an official language. Sindhi can be categorized into six major dialect groups. Of the six, Vicholi is used as the standard dialect because it is widely accepted as the education and administration language in Sindh,...

Sanskrit – संस्कृतम्

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Sanskrit is an archaic language used primarily as a liturgical language in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is one of the 22 official languages of India.  According to a 2001 census, it is spoken by 14,000 native speakers. Snaskrit is considered the oldest language in human history and the mother of all languages. It is also called the language of the gods. The Sanskrit alphabet is called ‘Devanagari’ which means ‘cities of the gods’. It can be traced back at least 5,000 years to ancient Hindu texts written in the Devanagari alphabet. This historical language has influenced and become the basis of every language spoken in India...